Cape Watch: 2016 Might Be the Year of the Robot Armor Billionaires

Welcome to 2016. Judging by the year’s two big forthcoming releases, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, this will be the era when all superheroes must fight each other like they’re in some gigantic cinematic thunderdome. (Fun!) Elsewhere, 2016 is also serving up a nice helping of antiheroes with Deadpool and Suicide Squad, followed by a dessert of Doctor Strange and X-Men: Apocalypse, neither of which is likely to feature superhero vs. superhero slugfests or antiheroes, just heroes who are kind of jerks.

But before we get to any of those movies, there’s all this stuff to catch up on. Want to know more about some of the above movies, and learn who won’t be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Here are the highlights of the last week’s superhero movie news—with a few holiday highlights thrown in just in case you missed them.

SUPER IDEA: X Gon’ Give It to Ya (As Long As ‘It’ Means Trailers)

Does that help? (Hey, the movie’s just over a month away from release. It’s time for the hard sell.)Why this is super: Between this and the #12DaysOfDeadpool promotion online before the holidays, it’s not as if people won’t know that Deadpool is coming. Whether or not the world is ready is another question, mind you.

SUPER IDEA: When You’re Strange, Faces Come Out of the Rain

In case the New Year return of Sherlock didn’t feed your hunger for Cumberbatch, Marvel released new images for this November’s Doctor Strange, showing Benedict C as the Sorcerer Supreme, as well as concept art for his Sanctum Sanctorum. Good news for fans of the original Steve Ditko comics: that iconic window is still there in the movie. Bad news for fans of the Ditko comics: Cumberbatch is doing a goatee’d Stephen Strange, not just going for the classic mustache. One hand gives, the other hand takes…Why this is super: As appreciators of the Ditko designs, we have to admit to being pleasantly surprised that the Sanctum Sanctorum looks so faithful to the comic book version. Does this mean that we’ll get to see C-Batch throw crazy hand shapes, a la the comic book Doc? We can but hope!

With the release only a couple months away, it’s no surprise that we’re beginning to see more information leak out about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, although who saw the tease coming from the movie’s toyline, which seems to suggest—spoilers!—that Lex Luthor will adopt a version of his 1980s robot war suit at some point during proceedings. While the idea of Jesse Eisenberg in a massive robot suit is an entertaining one, we’re not sure anyone should expect that it’ll make it into the film at this point. After all, we’re all still recovering from Constable Zuvio.Why this is super: Sure, the warsuit had a relatively serious early 21st century revival, but that still doesn’t make us any more convinced that it’s not just too goofy an idea to fit into the relatively realistic Man of Steel universe right now. But here’s hoping we’re wrong about that.

SUPER IDEA: Suddenly, Civil War Seems to Get a Lot Less Complicated

Chris Evans has been talking about Captain America: Civil War, telling Cineplex that the movie draws “a great parallel … between my character [Captain America] and Tony Stark,” and that the central conflict of the movie is “something we can all relate to in terms of how we perceive our own society and culture, in terms of what is best for people.” That conflict? “You have this team of people who are destroying every city they go to, but they’re saving the world. So it’s a matter of, do we monitor these people or do we let them monitor themselves? The beautiful thing with Civil War is that no one’s right and no one’s wrong; it’s just your personal opinion.” Well, wait. If the Avengers are destroying every city they go to, doesn’t everyone agree that’s kind of a problem? Really?Why this is super: Wait. Is part of the movie actually going to be Captain America going “Yeah, we destroy cities, but that’s our problem”? Because, if so, we’re now thinking that Tony Stark may have a point after all.

SUPER IDEA: Marvel Studios: Apparently the Ultimate Time Suck

For those hoping that Joss Whedon still might return to Marvel one day, comments from the writer/director at a recent appearance are likely to disappoint. “I made a completely clean break [with the studio],” he said, adding that if he didn’t “I wouldn’t do anything else because there are a lot of films, and it is a lot of fun.” He seemed positive (if exhausted) by his time with the studio, which is good, as is the fact that he seems determined to move back into original work that he creates. But that doesn’t mean that the response to Avengers: Age of Ultron was any easier, it seems; talking about the way he dealt with the reaction to that movie, he joked, “the way I deal with it is becoming fetal for about eight months.”

Watch the entire Q&A here:

Why this is super: While this is arguably sad news for anyone entirely invested in the potential for another Whedon-written/directed Marvel movie, it’s hard not to think of this as a pretty strong win-win situation for everyone else; the Marvel movies are in the hands of the Russo brothers and others, all of whom seem perfectly capable, and Whedon gets to go off and make new things. Isn’t that a best case scenario for all involved?

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